Making it Through Hard Times
"...The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire." Nehemiah 1: 3 "...Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish—stones that are burned?" Nehemiah 4: 2 The drama of the church is often reminiscent of those scenes from war movies in which excited new recruits march toward the front lines while being met by weary veterans limping along bandaged and bloody, carrying their wounded, and still in shock from the trauma of battle. The new recruits move forward ready to conquer the world, while battle-weary veterans groan in the pain of failure and disillusionment. Multitudes start out in the Christian walk, everybody expects testing, they just don't expect it to be so intense and real. They expect victory without battle (naiveté and untested faith) or battle without victory (skepticism and unbelief). Untested faith and motives must inevitably face the refiners fire; and the disillusionments of time a...